Page 353 - jane-eyre

nature and her will. My tears had risen, just as in childhood:
I ordered them back to their source. I brought a chair to the
bed-head: I sat down and leaned over the pillow.
‘You sent for me,’ I said, ‘and I am here; and it is my in-
tention to stay till I see how you get on.’
‘Oh, of course! You have seen my daughters?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, you may tell them I wish you to stay till I can talk
some things over with you I have on my mind: to-night it is
too late, and I have a difficulty in recalling them. But there
was something I wished to say—let me see—‘
The wandering look and changed utterance told what
wreck had taken place in her once vigorous frame. Turn-
ing restlessly, she drew the bedclothes round her; my elbow,
resting on a corner of the quilt, fixed it down: she was at
once irritated.
‘Sit up!’ said she; ‘don’t annoy me with holding the clothes
fast. Are you Jane Eyre?’
‘I am Jane Eyre.’
‘I have had more trouble with that child than any one
would believe. Such a burden to be left on my hands—and
so much annoyance as she caused me, daily and hourly,
with her incomprehensible disposition, and her sudden
starts of temper, and her continual, unnatural watchings of
one’s movements! I declare she talked to me once like some-
thing mad, or like a fiend—no child ever spoke or looked as
she did; I was glad to get her away from the house. What did
they do with her at Lowood? The fever broke out there, and
many of the pupils died. She, however, did not die: but I said

Jane Eyre